LABOUR'S EMPTY SHOP WINDOW Maynard: Loony right wing

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Guard: I'd have lost my job Let's get a Labour majority so that we can press for socialist policies. That was the main tenor of an election speech by Labour 'left' Joan Maynard in her Sheffield Brightside constituency last week.

But as one Socialist Press reader was quick io point out, it is not enough to press for socialist policies when retreats by the Labour 'left' have ensured that there are none in Labour's election manifesto.

Maynard went on to criticise those who, she claimed, attacked Labour's 'lefts' rather than the right wing.

It was pointed out in reply that principled socialists attack both the right wing and the 'left' wingers' refusal to fight them.

And Maynard's assertion that there have been no expuisions of socialists from the Labour Party was at once challenged by speakers who pointed to the expulsion _of Sheffield socialist Eddie Oldnail, and the more recent expulsion of Oxford Socialist Press supporter Ted Heslin, an Executive member of the Oxford City Labour Party.

Maynard pledged to oppose this expulsion when the appeal comes before the NEC.

Questioned on whether she would support the candidacy of Brendan Gallagher, who is standing against Labour's torture chief Roy Mason in nearby Barnsley, Maynard declared that she would definitely not support Mason if she was in his constituency.

But Maynard's practical record over the last five years is one of a failure at any point to mount any serious move to oust Mason. or his cabinet cronies from the Labour Party leadership.

PHOTO: Derek Speirs. IFL Gallagher 59 supposed 'extreme left wing" candidates.' The loony right of the SDA is claimed to number some 800 mislaid Tories, and headed by the nutty Dr. Stephen Haseler who last week challenged Callaghan to "dissociate himself from the avowed Trotskyists who are running as Labour candidates" , or face abstentions in the 59 constituencies involved.

Fine stuff for the witchhunters of the Daily Express and BBC Radio's World at One, but enough to make any Labour Party militant roll round laughing, one might have thought.

But Callaghan sprang rapidly to the defence of supposed cabinet "extremists" Foot and Benn.

'They're wonderful, patriotic citizens of this country • .." he declared, to any lingering doubters.

And they, like hin are loyal servants of capital und Her Majesty the Queen!

Evan Luard, Oxford's extreme right wing Labour MP spoke to a handful of people in Marston, Oxford, last week and defended the record of the CallaghanHealy government.

Nobody likes strikes, he said and a Tory government will provoke far more than a Labour government because the Labour Party has the Concordat, [their Maynarc collaborationist deal with the TUC].

What's more, he said, Thatcher actually supports free collective bargaining, an 'evil' which Luard believes to be "outdated" in today's economic climate.

Questioned on his position on British imperialism's oppression of the Irish people, Luard denied any knowledge of torture in jails in Northern Ireland or in Britain.

He insisted that all prisoners in Ireland were vicious criminals who deserved tough treatment.

When asked whether he followed the Oxford City Labour Party's position calling for a vote against the Prevention of Terrorism Act when it was recently renewed in Parliament, Luard said he definitely did not vote against since this would have "lost my position in the This careerist position also emerged when he was asked whether as a junior minister in the Foreign Office he had supported David Owen's insistent defence of the Shah of Iran last Autumn.

Luard preferred "not to comment" on Owen's positions, but pointed out that the present Islamic regime in Iran "left much to be desired" on the question of human rights.

The subject of nursery provision is currently one interest in the Marston area but Luard had not done his homework in this field.

He could only read from Labour's manifesto the lie that "during the last two years of Labour government the proportion of 3 and 4 year olds in nursery classes had doubled."

He also retailed straightfaced the ludicrous promise that Labour • intended to provide nursery places for 90% of 4 year olds and 50% of 3 year olds.

Luard could not even begin to explain how these electioneering promises fit in with the reality of Labour's 87% cut in the nursery building programme —a programme which now only budgets £5 million per year!

PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report

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